Every business owner has a pet-peeve; normally it centres on the obvious, shall we say, less 'favourable' tasks. Filing, faxing, accounts, invoices, calls, events, meetings... the list goes on. Why do these elements of the average business generate such negativity from the average business-person? Well, it's generally because they'd prefer to be doing 'business' - or more accurately - focusing on driving their product or service forward as opposed to getting bogged down in the office work. Mayo businesspeople will be delighted to hear that there is an answer to these toils... and it comes in the form of Virtual Office Worx, a new service offered by Jenny Brennan.

The next meeting of the Mayo Open Coffee Club will take place on Wednesday, May 4th, in the Harlequin Hotel, Castlebar – where Sheen Van Den Oosten, Director of Sheena Oosten Web Graphic & Identity Design (www.sheenaoosten.com) and Sarah Flood, Director at Snap Printing (www.snap.ie) will be facilitating the meeting on “Branding & Design for your Business”.

Mayo County Enterprise Board in association with Network Mayo celebrate International Women's Day with some positive economics from Susan Hayes, the Positive Economist. A positive economist: it may sound like an oxymoron, but there is such a person! Susan Hayes, a.k.a. The Positive Economist, will be speaking at the Mayo CEB / Network Mayo 'International Women's Day' celebration, taking place in Knockranny House Hotel on the 8th March 2011 at 7.30 p.m.

While the new government receives their first baptism of fire, small businesses continue to innovate and examine new ways of developing their service offering. The latest example of this comes in the form of a large dollop of creative thinking from Galway-based Tara Dalrymple of Busy Lizzie, who spotted an opportunity to build her business's audience through a mutually-beneficial working synergy with another West-of-Ireland colleague, Irish Business Intelligence.